


Queen of Salt and Rock

by linndechir



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 12:31:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1119857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/pseuds/linndechir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No woman has ever sat the Seastone Chair. Asha is determined to be the first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Queen of Salt and Rock

**Author's Note:**

> Written for got_exchange on Livejournal.

The Great Hall was eerily quiet. In her father's days there had always been a healthy hustle and bustle here, but now it was as empty and silent as a grave. All of Pyke seemed too quiet these days, and not only because too many men had died in the past few years – during Balon's rebellion against the Iron Throne, on Euron's raids, following Victarion to the East and back, with her or Theon in the North. It was is if the Islands were still with anticipation, full of uncertainty about what would happen.

Her steps echoed through the hall as she walked up to the great dais that held the Seastone Chair, a gleaming black stone monstrosity carved into the shape of a giant kraken. The throne of her father, of her ancestors, too old and powerful to be defiled by the short time the Crow's Eye had spent on it. She climbed up the stairs as she had so often done before, to join her father's side and speak to him, but it felt different now that the throne was empty. Hers for the taking, but just as her fingers brushed over the cold stone, she hesitated.

She realised suddenly that she was not alone anymore, and when she turned she saw a gaunt figure in torn robes by the door. The Damphair looked even worse than the last time she had seen him, at the Kingsmoot, bony and older than his years – for a moment the thought reminded her of her little brother when she had found him all those months ago, but there was an unbroken strength and determination in Aeron's eyes that had long left Theon's, even before they closed one last time.

Aeron's bare feet made no sound as he crossed the hall. He looked thin and small, standing in front of the dais and looking up, but his dark eyes held her still with a firm authority that reminded her of her father. Her weapons sat easily on her hips, but she knew it was not a fight that awaited her, not with this uncle. Things were never that easy with the Damphair. 

“No woman has ever sat the Seastone Chair,” Aeron said finally. Asha frowned; his voice sounded too neutral, as if he was simply stating a fact rather than expressing his disapproval.

“I am the only living heir of Balon Greyjoy,” she said. Her voice rang loud and proud in the too quiet hall. Her father would approve if he could see her now. Asha suddenly had to think of her three dead brothers, Balon's other heirs. Of Rodrik and Maron, who had died when she had still been but a girl. Of Theon, mostly, cocky and stupid and a stranger when he had returned to Pyke, but still her little brother. Of the shell of a man she had found in the cursed snow of the North. She had had no thoughts for crowns and thrones when she had tried to care for him – as inexperienced as she was with nursing anyone back to health, she had felt as useless as if a mother had pressed a newly born babe into her arms, but she doubted that even more skilled efforts would have done any good. Theon had been beyond help. 

When she had been a child she had swam out too far into the ocean once and barely made it back. She had spent a week after that in bed, shaking with fever, and she had told her father that she had been so sure she would drown. Balon had simply replied that a man only drowned when he stopped swimming.

Asha had tried to keep Theon going, to give him strength and hope, but it was hard to drag someone back to shore who refused to move, who had no strength left to swim, who yearned more for the halls of the Drowned God than for land under his feet. Theon had wanted to drown, and at some point Asha had given up on trying to stop him. He had closed his eyes and not opened them again the next morning, and here she was, the only living child of Balon Greyjoy.

She knew what the Damphair would say even before he opened his mouth.

“Victarion -”

“- is a kinslayer,” Asha finished the sentence for him. She held no grudge against Victarion; if anything she was grateful to him. She had hoped his hatred for the Crow's Eye would win out over his sense of duty right after the Kingsmoot, but a life spent as Balon's right hand had ingrained too much obedience in Victarion, so he had gritted his teeth and followed Euron's orders to go East. Asha was sure that the Crow's Eye had sent him away because he feared his brother's temper without Balon reining him in, but whatever Euron had planned to do upon Victarion's return, it had gone terribly awry for him. Asha had not been there for their reunion, but when she returned to Pyke she was told that Euron's body had barely been recognisable anymore after Victarion was done with him. He had killed the Crow's Eye with his bare hands, a mad dog who finally tore out the throat of his tormentor once he was off his chain.

Aeron did not reply, so Asha pressed on.

“And the kinslayer is accursed in the eyes of gods and men. Victarion may be god-fearing, and while he is hardly smart he has the distinct quality of not being mad, but do you truly think it will bring our people any luck to be ruled by a cursed man?”

She wasn't sure how much stock she put in those old superstitions about curses and kinslayers. Asha had been raised in the faith of the Drowned God, but she had never been particularly devout. She did not know what would happen after her death, nor did she care much, and she was sure that whatever gods there were cared just as little about her as she did about them. But to Aeron the rules of their faith were law.

“He rid us of a greater evil.” Hatred burnt in Aeron's eyes, although Asha had never known why he despised Euron every bit as much as Victarion. It had to be personal, not only the outrage of a priest over Euron's godless ways, but she had never been able to find out what Euron had done to Aeron. Even so, there was doubt in his voice. Kinslaying was not a sin to be taken lightly, and from what she had heard Aeron and Victarion had barely spoken since Victarion's return to Pyke and Aeron's subsequent emergence from wherever he had been hiding from the Crow's Eye.

“And for that I am as grateful as any sane Ironborn.” Asha considered stepping down from the dais to meet him eye-to-eye, but that would only signal weakness. She was no longer the king's daughter. She was the queen. The sooner her uncle understood that, the better. “But Victarion would be in no state to lead us. He hasn't left his rooms since he killed his brother. He does not speak, he barely eats. Even if you do not think him cursed, he certainly does.”

Asha had tried to speak to Victarion several times, but he had stared at her as if he didn't recognise her, his eyes as haunted as after his last wife's death, his fingers caked with blood he had still not washed off. Killing his brother had killed something in him, as if he did not know what to live for, if not for hating Euron. Asha had seen him, and he was no king. In his current state he was barely a man.

“The Ironborn will never follow a woman,” Aeron said stubbornly. Asha laughed at him.

“They did not follow me at the Kingsmoot, but what choice do they have now? The Crow's Eye is dead, the Lord Captain of the Ironfleet doesn't have it in him to be a king, you are a priest. And only a kraken will rule these Islands.”

For a moment she saw a flicker of pride for his House in Aeron's eyes, and she knew without a doubt that he would not follow a Farwynd or a Drumm over a Greyjoy, even if it was only a woman. 

“I'm all they have left, their way out of this mess my uncle's and my brother's folly have left us with. Men already follow me, and many more will join me if I act quickly enough. Why would you try to stop me?”

Aeron's frown deepened, and Asha realised only then that he had not come to stop her. She did not know if he truly agreed with her, or if he had simply decided to stop meddling after his Kingsmoot had led to precisely the thing he had tried to avoid. Aeron shook his head slowly.

“I never approved of how my brother raised you, and it always bodes ill to flout tradition. But you have the right of it – there is no choice. If Victarion does not oppose you, neither will I.”

His words stung, the bitter reminder that she could only inherit what her father had intended for her because all the other contenders were either dead or half mad, but Asha had always been a pragmatist more than anything else. She had alliances to secure and potential rivals to subdue befores they could gather any support. She had no time to feel sorry for herself because the Damphair was not _happy_ about her sitting the throne. His support would have been helpful, but it was not necessary. So she did not bother to say anything before he turned to leave as quietly as he had come, to go she knew not where, hopefully back to his faith and his faithful.

Asha Greyjoy put her hand back on the black stone, rough fingers retracing the tentacles on the armrest, just where her father's hands had always rested. She was far from sentimental, but she missed Balon. He had trusted her, respected her, in his own way even loved her. He had wanted her to have his throne, when all the other men in her family had done nothing but try to take it from her.

But they had all fallen to their own pride, their arrogance, or their anger, and in the end it was Asha Greyjoy who was left to do what needed to be done. She was too honest to pretend she did not want the throne, but she was certain that she was the only one capable of ruling the Iron Islands and leading them away from the path of ruin they were on.

Maybe the Damphair had simply realised that this was what should have happened years ago at the Kingsmoot, Asha thought with a smirk. For a moment she considered sitting down on the throne, if only to remind herself that she wouldn't let anyone take it from her a second time, but with no one to witness it, she would have felt like the little girl who used to sneak into the Great Hall at night to climb on her father's throne.

Thrones and coronations could wait. The Queen of Salt and Rock had work to do.


End file.
